If you’ve ever walked through downtown Portland, Oregon, and wondered about the origin and meaning of the “Rip City” signs and banners, the answer is rooted in the city’s professional basketball team, the Portland Trailblazers. The term was reportedly coined by local broadcasting legend Bill Schonely during the team’s inaugural 1970-71 season.
Read MoreEveryone in the Seattle music community knows Marco Collins. To some, he’s a hero, an idol. To others, he’s a friend and confidant. To even more, he’s a story, perhaps a cautionary tale to not let a life or career in music overtake you. But, above all else, Collins, who is one of the few radio DJs in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, is a kind-hearted soul who has experience many of life’s highest highs and lowest lows.
Read MoreFor any sports fan or ESPN aficionado, the name Kenny Mayne is more than familiar. Mayne, of course, is the sardonic, sarcastic personality who often hosts the station’s flagship program, SportsCenter. Mayne, who has also hosted shows like ESPN’s Widler World of Sports, grew up an athlete and played quarterback at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he broke his leg in 1980. Ever since the break, Mayne has suffered ankle pains – so much so that he once considered amputation. More recently, however, he found relief with intricate rehab and special braces. This relief has translated into a foundation he co-founded with his wife, RunFreely.org, which helps wounded veterans walk again. We caught up with Mayne to ask him about the project, how he got into sports and what’s next.
Read MoreJames Beard Award-winning chef Edouardo Jordan operates three prestigious eateries in Seattle’s sleepy Ravenna neighborhood: JuneBaby, Salare and Lucinda Grain Bar. While many might consider the chef to be a man of the city, the classically trained restaurant owner also has a true passion for nature. Indeed, Jordan says it was one of the reasons he first moved to the Emerald City from his native Florida in 2006.
Read MoreKen Burns remembers sitting in a tiny editing room, sobbing, as he put together his latest documentary, Country Music. In fact, the acclaimed filmmaker says, there are often a half-dozen boxes of tissues in the office for him and his staff to use as they pore through old photographs and emotional testimonials—content they choose from to tell intimate stories about impactful time periods, iconic structures and significant cultural movements in American history.
Read MoreAs a nurse, it can often feel like you’re climbing never-ending staircases, running down the halls as if the last few seconds of a clock is ticking out, or that you’re climbing walls and swinging from problem to problem. The job can be that tough, draining and demanding. But for ICU nurse, Madyson Howard, those hurdles and gauntlets are a part of her life outside the hospital, too. The nurse is also a finalist on the nationally televised program, American Ninja Warrior.
Read MoreAmerican singer-songwriter, Steve Earle, is a living legend. Between his decades touring the country, playing his jangly-heavy guitar for audiences thirsty for stories of the road and dust kicked up, and his years acting on hit television shows like HBO’s The Wire and Treme, Earle is known for his folk wisdom and sharp tongue. He’s a veteran of the Texas, New Orleans and Nashville music circuits and he’s a staple for those combing through the decades of Americana music greatness. I caught up with Earle to ask him about the first time he picked up a guitar, what it was like leaving his parents at an early age to pursue songwriting and what he’d like to experience just before he died.
Read MoreOne of the Pacific Northwest’s most innovative breweries sits not in the craft beer hubs of Seattle and Bellingham, but in the fertile farmlands of Skagit Valley.
Farmstrong Brewing Company’s story begins with the cover crop — the practice of planting soil-enriching plants after a more profitable crop’s harvest. In Skagit Valley, grains are the most prominent cover crop of all.
Farms have cultivated grains for decades as a way to reintroduce nitrogen into soil depleted by apple production, among other harvests. Historically, the “nitrogen-fixer” grains were simply ground up and added back into the soil as compost. But in 2013, Skagit Valley Malting began buying up the grains, roasting and curing them, and selling them to local breweries like Farmstrong. The result is a match made in craft-beer heaven.
Read MoreKIRO RADIO’S RACHEL BELLE loves food. A decade ago, the intrepid reporter stumbled upon a list of last meals requested by Texas inmates. She wondered—what would her own last meal be, and what if she turned this curiosity into a podcast series featuring celebrities such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, Guillermo Del Toro and Alicia Silverstone? Just like that, the podcast Your Last Meal with Rachel Belle was born.
Read MoreValerie June finally has free time. After a life working odd jobs and steeling moments to write songs, the lilting, butterfly-voiced Americana singer has room to make her art, unfettered by traditional responsibilities. And, she says, this is the best thing she could have hoped for. June talked about this newfound resource and the freedom it offers her ever-evolving creativity. She also talked about the time she met Brad Pitt (and nearly passed out), what her favorite candy was as a kid and how she grew up singing gospel music with family and friends all around her.
Read MorePaul “H.R.” Hudson is the longtime front man for Bad Brains, a group founded in 1979 and often credited with creating the original hardcore sound. Through fast, energetic songs and snarling, high-pitched vocals, Bad Brains raced through shows as their fans moshed all around them. Bad Brains also often played reggae between the punk rock. And after decades in the scene, the band only plays reggae at shows today. This fall, H.R. (short for Human Rights) is releasing a new solo record, Give Thanks, a reggae-inspired album filled with the uplifting music he’s made his signature. I caught up with the front man to talk with him about the origins of Bad Brains, what they talked about as they were creating a new sound and what it was like for H.R. to get brain surgery later in life after enduring a series of terrible headaches.
Read MoreIf you’re a fan of celebrity, chances are you’ve encountered the work of David Marchese. His interviews, whether published by his former employer, New York Magazine, or his current one, The New York Times Magazine, regularly unearth some of the more revelatory details about our most mystifying stars. The most famous example is probably Marchese’s 2018 conversation with Quincy Jones, during which he revealed, among other things, that he used to date Ivanka Trump. But there are countless examples of other eyebrow-raisers in Marchese’s ouvre; in his interview with Eminem, the rapper said he frequented strip clubs and Tinder to find dates post-divorce. Or, there’s his recent interview with Whoopi Goldberg, where she admitted that hosting The View is not “enough.”
Read MoreIt’s been 20 years since Seattle SuperSonics legend, Detlef Schrempf, suited up in the green and gold, but that hasn’t stopped the former All-NBA player from making a home in the Emerald City area (Bellevue, technically), where the German-born sharp-shooter lives, plays golf and works at an investment firm, Coldstream Capital. I caught up with Schrempf at Third Culture Coffee in Old Bellevue to ask him about the music he listened to when he hooped, his favorite Seattle bands in college and who decides on the soundtrack in an NBA locker room.
Read MoreIf you came of age in the 90s or early 2000s, backpack or underground hip-hop was likely a large part of the music in your favorite CD binder (and later your iPod). That being the case, one of your favorite rappers was likely Talib Kweli, the Brooklyn-based emcee who rose to fame with his brother-in-rap, Mos Def (aka Yasiin Bey) and other fellow mic rippers like Common Sense and The Roots. Since those years, Kweli, who plays Nectar Lounge July 27, has solidified himself as an important voice when it comes to socially conscious ideas and practices. To preview his upcoming Emerald City show, I caught up with Kweli to ask him about those early years, if he read a lot as a kid and when he first began to write and perform.
Read MoreBefore becoming a renowned cartoonist, Tony Millionaire struggled to find any work at all. But after quitting a middling dishwashing job, he had an epiphany. He decided to go door-to-door in wealthy neighborhoods and draw the manicured mansions and sell the pictures to the people who lived there, earning a living one $25 piece at a time. In the winter, though, the drawing work dried up and Millionaire had to scramble to find new income, eventually landing a job as a demolition man.
“The people who had money to spend on drawings lived in big, fancy houses,” recalls Millionaire, a nationally syndicated cartoonist. “If you have a nice, big old house, the garden comes in perfectly, the roof is fixed, the flowers are coming in nicely. How do you put a period on that? You have somebody draw a picture of it. But you can’t really do that in winter. So, I had to find a job in construction. I used to do the demolition inside houses. I’d tear them down in winter and draw them in summer.”
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